C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Faith
Faith is the force of life.
Faith is the continuation of reason.
Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.
Faith is the heroism of intellect.
Faith is a higher facility than reason.
Faith is not reason’s labor, but repose.
Faith lights us through the dark to Deity.
Faith is necessary to victory.
Faith creates the virtues in which it believes.
Faith loves to lean on time’s destroying arm.
Faith is deferential incredulity.
On argument alone my faith is built.
Youth without faith is a day without sun.
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
The power of faith will often shine forth the most when the character is naturally weak.
A perfect faith would lift us absolutely above fear.
Our life must answer for our faith.
Faith is obedience, not compliance.
The principal part of faith is patience.
Faith is love taking the form of aspiration.
Faith is nothing but spiritualized imagination.
There are no tricks in plain simple faith.
Faith builds a bridge from this world to the next.
This is faith: it is nothing more than obedience.
Faith in a better than that which appears is no less required by art than by religion.
Faith always implies the disbelief of a lesser fact in favor of a greater.
Faith is the subtle chain that binds us to the Infinite.
Faith is the root of works. A root that produceth nothing is dead.
He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block.
As the flower is before the fruit, so is faith before good works.
Faith, amid the disorders of a sinful life, is like the lamp burning in an ancient tomb.
Man is not made to question, but adore.
Faith needs her daily bread.
Faith is the flame that lifts the sacrifice to heaven.
Let us fear the worst, but work with faith; the best will always take care of itself.
The faith which you keep must be a faith that demands obedience, and you can keep it only by obeying it.
Without faith a man can do nothing. But faith can stifle all science.
No cloud can overshadow a true Christian but his faith will discern a rainbow in it.
It is impossible to be a hero in anything unless one is first a hero in faith.
“Patience!”***“have faith and thy prayer will be answered!”
Faith is the soul going out of itself for all its wants.
The faith of immortality gives to every mind that cherishes it a certain firmness of texture.
A lively faith will bear aloft the mind, and leave the luggage of good works behind.
Not prayer without faith, nor faith without prayer, but prayer in faith, is the cost of spiritual gifts and graces.
None live so easily, so pleasantly, as those that live by faith.
Faith is among men what gravity is among planets and suns.
Faith converses with the angels, and antedates the hymns of glory.
The highest order that was ever instituted on earth is the order of faith.
Heaven alone, not earth, is destined to witness the repose of faith.
Faith makes the discords of the present the harmonies of the future.
It was Lazarus’ faith, not his poverty, which brought him into Abraham’s bosom.
Pin thy faith to no man’s sleeve. Hast thou not two eyes of thy own?
Systems exercise the mind; but faith enlightens and guides it.
All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.
A maxim in law has more weight in the world than an article of faith.
Faith makes us, and not we it; and faith makes its own forms.
The steps of faith fall on the seeming void, and find the rock beneath.
For mysterious things of faith, rely on the proponent, Heaven’s authority.
In affairs of this world men are saved, not by faith, but by the want of it.
When faith is lost, when honor dies, the man is dead.
Faith is the champion of grace, and love the nurse; but humility is the beauty of grace.
Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.
Faith, though it hath sometimes a trembling hand, it must not have a withered hand, but must stretch.
All the scholastic scaffolding falls, as a ruined edifice, before one single word—faith.
The Americans have no faith, they rely on the power of a dollar; they are deaf to sentiment.
Christians are directed to have faith in Christ, as the effectual means of obtaining the change they desire.
If you have any faith, give me, for heaven’s sake, a share of it! Your doubts you may keep to yourself, for I have a plenty of my own.
Faith is the key that unlocks the cabinet of God’s treasures; the king’s messenger from the celestial world, to bring all the supplies we need out of the fullness that there is in Christ.
Our Lord does not praise the centurion for his amiable care of his servants, nor for his generosity to the Jews, nor for his public spirit, nor for his humility, but for his faith.
Have you not observed that faith is generally strongest in those whose character may be called the weakest?
Faith is letting down our nets into the untransparent deeps, at the Divine command, not knowing what we shall take.
Faith is necessary to explain anything, and to reconcile the foreknowledge of God with human evil.
Love is a bodily shape; and Christian works are no more than animate faith and love, as flowers are the animate springtide.
The inventory of my faith for this lower world is soon made out. I believe in Him who made it.
Lay not the plummet to the line; religion hath no landmarks; no human keenness can discern the subtle shades of faith.
Strike from mankind the principle of faith, and men would have no more history that a flock of sheep.
Faith draws the poison from every grief, takes the sting from every loss, and quenches the fire of every pain; and only faith can do it.
I wonder many times that ever a child of God should have a sad heart, considering what the Lord is preparing for him.
Youth, beauty, wit may recommend you to men, but only faith in Jesus Christ can recommend you to God.
The person who has a firm trust in the Supreme Being is powerful in his power, wise by his wisdom, happy by his happiness.
Life grows dark as we go on, till only one clear light is left shining on it, and that is faith.
Faith is an humble, self-denying grace; it makes the Christian nothing in himself, and all in God.
I’ll ne’er distrust my God for cloth and bread while lilies flourish and the raven ’s fed.
Were it not for an unquestioning faith, human progress would be an intolerable burden.
All sects, as far as reason will help them, gladly use it; when it fails them, they cry out it is a matter of faith, and above reason.
That faith which is required of us is then perfect when it produces in us a fiduciary assent to whatever the Gospel has revealed.
Which to believe of her must be a faith that reason without miracle shall never plant in me.
Those who have obtained the farthest insight into Nature have been, in all ages, firm believers in God.
Faith is to believe what we do not see; and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe.
Faith, like light, should ever be simple and unbending; while love, like warmth, should beam forth on every side, and bend to every necessity of our brethren.
Faith and works are necessary to our spiritual life as Christians, as soul and body are to our natural life as men; for faith is the soul of religion, and works the body.
Faith, in order to be genuine and of any real value, must be the offspring of that divine love which Jesus manifested when He prayed for His enemies on the cross.
As a weak limb grows stronger by exercise, so will your faith be strengthened by the very efforts you make in stretching it out toward things unseen.
There never was found in any age of the world, either philosopher or sect, or law or discipline, which did so highly exalt the public good as the Christian faith.
Faith affirms many things, respecting which the senses are silent, but nothing that they deny. It is superior, but never opposed to their testimony.
Faith is mind at its best, its bravest, and its fiercest. Faith is thought become poetry, and absorbing into itself the soul’s great passions. Faith is intellect carried up to its transfigurement.
In our age faith and charity are found, but they are found apart. We tolerate everybody, because we doubt everything; or else we tolerate nobody, because we believe something.
There is one inevitable criterion of judgment touching religious faith in doctrinal matters. Can you reduce it to practice? If not, have none of it.
A firm faith is the best theology; a good life is the best philosophy; a clear conscience the best law; honesty the best policy, and temperance the best physic.
It is by faith that poetry, as well as devotion, soars above this dull earth; that imagination breaks through its clouds, breathes a purer air, and lives in a softer light.
Faith may rise into miracles of might, as some few wise men have shown; faith may sink into credulities of weakness, as the mass of fools have witnessed.
Faith is the key that unlocks the cabinet of God’s treasures; the king’s messenger from the celestial world, to bring all the supplies we need out of the fullness that there is in Christ.
Given a man full of faith, you will have a man tenacious in purpose, absorbed in one grand object, simple in his motives, in whom selfishness has been driven out by the power of a mightier love, and indolence stirred into unwearied energy.
The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all weathers is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience.
The childlike faith that asks not sight, waits not for wonder or for sign, believes, because it loves, aright, shall see things greater, things divine.
Not that God doth require nothing unto happiness at the hands of men saving only a naked belief, but that without belief all other things are as nothing.
We cannot live on probabilities. The faith in which we can live bravely and die in peace must be a certainty, so far as it professes to be a faith at all, or it is nothing.
Let none henceforth seek needless cause to approve the faith they own; when earnestly they seek such proof, conclude they then begin to fail.
Faith must be not only living, but lively, too; it must be brightened and stirred up by a particular exercise of those virtues specifically requisite to a due performance of duty.
Faith in God, faith in man, faith in work: this is the short formula in which we may sum up the teachings of the founders of New England—a creed ample enough for this life and the next.
The faith to which the Scriptures attach such momentous consequences and ascribe such glorious exploits is a practical habit, which, like every other, is strengthened and increased by continual exercise.
The highest historical probability can be adduced in support of the proposition that, if it were possible to annihilate the Bible, and with it all its influences, we should destroy with it the whole spiritual system of the moral world.
We should act with as much energy as those who expect everything from themselves; and we should pray with as much earnestness as those who expect everything from God.
Works without faith are like a fish without water, it wants the element it should live in. A building without a basis cannot stand; faith is the foundation, and every good action is as a stone laid.
Men seldom think deeply on subjects in which they have no choice of opinion: they are fearful of encountering obstacles to their faith—as in religion—and so are content with the surface.
The great desire of this age is for a doctrine which may serve to condense our knowledge, guide our researches, and shape our lives, so that conduct may really be the consequence of belief.
Faith is the revealer of knowledge; it is the office of reason to defend that knowledge and to preserve it pure. Independent knowledge—the knowledge that comes not through faith—whether it be of things earthly or things heavenly, never can be ours.
Faith is a homely, private capital; as there are public savings-banks and poor funds, out of which in times of want we can relieve the necessities of individuals, so here the faithful take their coin in peace.
Faith without works is like a bird without wings; though she may hop with her companions on earth, yet she will never fly with them to heaven; but when both are joined together, then doth the soul mount up to her eternal rest.
In your intercourse with sects, the sublime and abstruse doctrines of Christian belief belong to the Church; but the faith of the individual, centred in his heart, is, or may be, collateral to them. Faith is subjective.
Faith is the very heroism and enterprise of intellect. Faith is not a passivity, but a faculty. Faith is power, the material of effect. Faith is a kind of winged intellect. The great workmen of history have been men who believed like giants.
Faith without evidence is, properly, not faith, but prejudice or presumption; faith beyond evidence is superstition, and faith contrary to evidence is either insanity or willful perversity of mind.
What we believe we must believe wholly and without reserve; wherefore the only perfect and satisfying object of faith is God. A faith that sets bounds to itself, that will believe so much and no more, that will trust thus far and no farther, is none.
Never yet did there exist a full faith in the Divine word which did not expand the intellect, while it purified the heart; which did not multiply the aims and objects of the understanding, while it fixed and simplified those of the desires and feelings.
And we shall be made truly wise if we be made content; content, too, not only with what we can understand, but content with what we do not understand—the habit of mind which theologians call—and rightly—faith in God.
Ye children of promise, who art awaiting your call to glory, take possession of the inheritance that now is yours. By faith take the promises. Live upon them, not upon emotions. Remember, feeling is not faith. Faith grasps and clings to the promises. Faith says, “I am certain, not because feeling testifies to it, but because God says it.”
When my reason is afloat, my faith cannot long remain in suspense, and I believe in God as firmly as in any other truth whatever; in short, a thousand motives draw me to the consolatory side, and add the weight of hope to the equilibrium of reason.
All the strength and force of man comes from his faith in things unseen. He who believes is strong; he who doubts is weak. Strong conviction precede great actions. The man strongly possessed of an idea is the master of all who are uncertain or wavering. Clear, deep, living convictions rule the world.
Flatter not thyself in thy faith to God, if thou wantest charity for thy neighbor; and think not thou hast charity for thy neighbor if thou wantest faith to God. Where they are not both together, they are both wanting; they are both dead if once divided.
Faith is a practical habit, which, like every other, is strengthened and increased by continual exercise. It is nourished by meditation, by prayer, and the devout perusal of the Scriptures; and the light which it diffuses becomes stronger and clearer by an uninterrupted converse with its object, and a faithful compliance with its dictates.
Faith is the inspiration of nobleness, it is the strength of integrity; it is the life of love, and is everlasting growth for it; it is courage of soul, and bridges over for our crossing the gulf between worldliness and heavenly-mindedness; and it is the sense of the unseen, without which we could not feel God nor hope for heaven.
It is sufficiently humiliating to our nature to reflect that our knowledge is but as the rivulet, our ignorance as the sea. On points of the highest interest, the moment we quit the light of revelation we shall find that Platonism itself is intimately connected with Pyrrhonism, and the deepest inquiry with the darkest doubt.
Never yet did there exist a full faith in the Divine Word (by whom light as well as immortality was brought into the world) which did not expand the intellect, while it purified the heart—which did not multiply the aims and objects of the understanding, while it fixed and simplified those of the desires and passions.
If thy faith have no doubts, thou has just cause to doubt thy faith; and if thy doubts have no hope, thou hast just reason to fear despair; when therefore thy doubts shall exercise thy faith, keep thy hopes firm to qualify thy doubts; so shall thy faith be secured from doubts; so shall thy doubts be preserved from despair.
Faith is the backbone of the social and the foundation of the commercial fabric; remove faith between man and man, and society and commerce fall to pieces. There is not a happy home on earth but stands on faith; our heads are pillowed on it, we sleep at night in its arms with greater security for the safety of our lives, peace, and prosperity than bolts and bars can give.
Mahomet made the people believe that he would call a hill to him, and from the top of it offer up his prayers for the observers of his law. The people assembled; Mahomet called the hill to come to him, again and again, and when the hill stood still, he was never awhit abashed, but said, if the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill.
Judge not man by his outward manifestation of faith; for some there are who tremblingly reach out shaking hands to the guidance of faith; others who stoutly venture in the dark their human confidence, their leader, which they mistake for faith; some whose hope totters upon crutches; others who stalk into futurity upon stilts. The difference is chiefly constitutional with them.
The light of genius is sometimes so resplendent as to make a man walk through life, amid glory and acclamation; but it burns very dimly and low when carried into “the valley of the shadow of death.” But faith is like the evening star, shining into our souls the more brightly, the deeper is the night of death in which they sink.
There are three means of believing—by inspiration, by reason, and by custom. Christianity, which is the only rational institution, does yet admit none for its sons who do not believe by inspiration. Nor does it injure reason or custom, or debar them of their proper force; on the contrary, it directs us to open our minds by the proofs of the former, and to confirm our minds by the authority of the latter.
There is a grand fearlessness in faith. He who in his heart of hearts reverences the good, the true, the holy—that is, reverences God—does not tremble at the apparent success of attacks upon the outworks of faith. They may shake those who rest on those outworks—they do not move him whose soul reposes on the truth itself. He needs no prop or crutches to support his faith. Founded on a Rock, Faith can afford to gaze undismayed at the approaches of Infidelity.